Ferrari 212 Inter was first represented to the public at the Brussels Motor Show in 1951. This model was replaced by successful Ferrari 166 and 195 Inter GT. Model 212 became as it were an evolution of Ferrari 166 – a car designed for ordinary high roads but with the potential of racing supercar.
The car was constructed on the chassis of Ferrari 125, the famous studios Carrozzeria Touring, Ghia, Vignale, and Pinin Farina worked over the body and the interior. The wheelbase of the car is 2250 mm. The car was equipped with a gasoline engine V12 Colombo with the volume of 2.6 liters and the power of 160 hp at 7200 r / min. The five-speed transmission and drum brakes were placed into the car.

A model of Ferrari 212 Inter Cabriolet was represented at the Turin Motor Show in April 1952, and in autumn, at the same year, at the Paris Motor Show a coupe was represented. Aluminum bodies for these cars were developed by the company Ghia. The design of the coupe was especially original: the upper half of the body is painted in yellow-brown colour, the lower one is in black. The line separating two colours rises sharply in the tail section, horizontally passing through the trunk.

The owner of the first Ferrari 212 Inter Coupe was the President of Argentina, Juan Domingo Peron.
In general, many great optional bodies were constructed on the basis of this car by different bodywork factories.
Bodies of Spyder type were made in the Carrozzeria Touring studio in Milan. It consisted of aluminum panels mounted on a frame of steel tubes: this construction is called the Superleggera (“super light”).

A large number of open bodies such as Barchetta type for Ferrari 212 were constructed by this Milan studio. One of the most interesting is Ferrari Touring Barchetta. The car was designed for the delivery to the U.S., and therefore it has a number of features that differentiate it from the European analogues. The 2.7-liter engine with the power of 212 horsepower was set into the car, while in the exterior there is clearly discernible “Americanism” in the form of tires with white sidewalls, chrome rims of back lights and exhaust pipes coming out of the rear wings.
The first owner of this car was Henry Ford who admired Ferrari. There is a version that the car presented to the master in some way served as a source of inspiration when created the famous Ford Thunderbird of 1955, exhaust pipes of which also pierce the elements of the rear bumper. In token of respect to Henry Ford, the gift was painted not in the traditional red colour but in the “Ford” black colour.