An interesting car arrived at my shop on a cold January morning. There was 20 inches of snow on the ground and the temps were hovering around 20 degrees.

The car was a 1951 Ferrari 212 that was once owned by David Letterman. This car seems to have gone full circle because I’ve known about this car for over 30 years. I had started working for Late Show with David Letterman in 1993 as an Audio Engineer, and Francois had started working for Letterman on his Ferraris a few years earlier. As fate would have it, we met each other through Ferraris and our connection has grown into a friendship and career that lasted well beyond our former employer!

Back in the mid 90s, Letterman was asked to show his Ferrari 212 in NYC for a show that was held in Midtown Manhattan at Rockefeller Center, and I tagged along to the show. When we were asked to drive the car across the reviewing stand, I jumped in the back seat for a ride!

The car was finished by Francois after bringing it back from the West Coast. Letterman bought the car to restore, and the restoration out in California was dragging on. Francois advised him to bring the car to his shop in Connecticut to assemble the engine and finish the car. As Dave and Francois bought more Ferraris, and this car was finished, Dave realized he preferred the “newer” Ferraris he added to his collection, from a Daytona, Boxer, and a Lusso. This car languished in Dave’s collection and eventually was sold to Dana Mecum.

The current owner bought the car at auction this year, after researching the car, and discussing the history of the car with me. He liked the story, and decided to bid on the car. These early Ferraris were built in the company’s infancy with the Factory only open for a few years. Ferrari was using several body builders in Italy to design and shape the bodies on their chassis and engine combination, and this particular was was built by Ghia. Some felt the shape of this particular cars was not as sexy as some of the designs of other car built by Touring, Vignale, or Pininfariana, but the lines of this car definitely speak the vernacular of the 50s.

This car has been bouncing around the auction circuit for the past 3 years, moving on and off trucks, started, run for a short time, and parked, so I had to make a list of things that needed to be addressed to make this car road worthy again. I found an exhaust pipe that had cracked at the weld that needed attention.

There was some weeping at the fuel tank that I will have to investigate. Hopefully it’s a loose fitting or breather hose instead of a crack in the tank!

I also saw some fluid leaking from one of the rear brake drums.

Removing the drum, I found red gear oil leaking down from the axle seal. From the trails of dirt, I could see this slow leak was happening for a while.

The drums were surprisingly clean with only a light coating of oil.

The brake shoes will have to be cleaned, but first I wanted to remove the hub to get to the source of the leak.

I will get a new seal and install it, but I also plan to change out the rear differential oil. I spoke to Francois about the service on the rear axle, and he told me this was done while the car was in California. The oil looked fine, but I felt was too thin and improper for a Ferrari rear axle. Ferraris specify a very thick rear axle oil, and the oil installed in this axle seemed like synthetic gear oil with very low viscosity. Thicker oil and a new seal should remedy this leak.

I drained the engine oil and found the usual signs of no mileage and short time running with it being pretty dark. Hopefully with new fluids and a thorough service, this car will see more mileage in the next year than it did in the 30 years Letterman owned it!