Can you use a 1987 Ferrari Testarossa as a daily driver? Sure you can, but it’s easier if you know how to work on it yourself. As Jay Leno recently learned in the video below, Victoria Bruno is up to the rewarding challenge.
Bruno is a graduate of McPherson College in Kansas, which offers four-year degrees in automotive restoration. There, she learned all about bodywork, engines, interior and trim, and more. Clearly, her education paid off because she used it to get a job as a Ferrari mechanic that specializes in the marque’s older, more technical models.
Bruno’s combination of training and experience prepared her to take on her first project car: a 1987 Ferrari Testarossa that had been sitting for several years after accruing only 12,000 miles.
Despite its dormancy, the Testarossa aged well. The black paint is mostly original and the matching black full-leather interior (including the headliner!) appears to be in fantastic shape.
The mechanically fuel-injected 4.9-liter flat-12 may be intimidating to many people, but Bruno saw it as just a set of nuts and bolts that could be fixed. Given her acquisition’s on-road hiatus, Bruno performed a major engine-out service, replacing things such as the cam seals, belts, and hoses. She even overhauled the brakes behind those cool center-lock wheels, plus she had the alternator rebuilt.
There are still more things that Bruno needs to do to refresh her Testarossa, but she enjoys the fact that it’s a work in progress. She plans on driving it until the odometer hits 112,000 miles, so she’ll have plenty more opportunities to work on it. When those opportunities arise, we’re confident that Bruno will be ready to get her hands dirty and start turning wrenches.
