Lampredi studied mechanical engineering at the Institut Technique Supérieur in Fribourg. Though a lover of classical music who had initially hoped to study piano, he was guided by his father toward engineering. After a brief apprenticeship at the Livorno Shipyard, he joined Piaggio in 1937 under the supervision of Corradino D'Ascanio. When Italy entered World War II he was drafted and transferred to Reggiane, where he designed military aircraft engines. His work there impressed Reggiane's chief designer Carlo Ruini sufficiently for Ruini to recommend Lampredi to Enzo Ferrari, who was building his own racing operation.
Lampredi's first stint at Ferrari was short-lived. With Giuseppe Busso and Gioacchino Colombo already occupying senior positions, he judged there was insufficient scope for professional development and moved to Milan to work at Isotta Fraschini. He was hired back by Ferrari in 1951 after Busso had departed for Alfa Romeo and Colombo had moved into an advisory role.
His first major contribution was a large-displacement naturally aspirated V12, produced in 3.3, 4.1, and 4.5 litre forms. These engines were first used in the Ferrari 275 S, 275 F1, 340 F1, and 375 F1 racing cars, providing a powerful and reliable alternative to the smaller Colombo-derived V12s that had powered earlier Ferrari machinery. After Colombo's supercharged Formula One engine failed to perform competitively, Lampredi's naturally aspirated design came to the fore. His 4.5 litre V12 delivered Ferrari its first Formula One victory when José Froilán González won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1951.
Enzo Ferrari then tasked Lampredi with designing a twin-cam four-cylinder engine for Formula Two competition, anticipating a regulatory change that would allow Formula Two cars to run in Formula One from 1952 until new rules took effect in 1954. The resulting engine proved exceptionally competitive across multiple categories. Alberto Ascari used it to secure back-to-back Formula One World Championships in 1952 and 1953, cementing Lampredi's reputation as one of the most capable engine designers of his generation.
Lampredi's time at Ferrari ended in 1955 when the company acquired the Lancia racing division, bringing the legendary Vittorio Jano into the fold. Though Lampredi's engine designs continued to underpin Ferrari road cars, Jano's V6 and V12 racing engines gradually replaced them at the top level. Ferrari went on to win drivers' titles with Juan-Manuel Fangio in 1956 and Mike Hawthorn in 1958 using engines derived from Jano's work.
After leaving Ferrari, Lampredi joined Fiat, where he led the company's engine design programme until 1977. He created the Fiat Twin Cam and SOHC engine families, powerplants that went on to be used in the vast majority of Fiat and Lancia cars for more than thirty years. He also managed Fiat's Abarth factory rally racing group from 1973 through 1982.
The Lampredi Twin Cam became the most successful engine in World Rally Championship history, accumulating the greatest number of wins and earning ten manufacturers' championships for Fiat and Lancia. In 1976 Lampredi designed a dedicated engine for Fiat's entry into the Brazilian market — the FIASA unit — which powered the Fiat 147, a Brazilian adaptation of the European Fiat 127. That vehicle was the first in Brazil to feature a transversely mounted engine with a belt-driven overhead camshaft, and became the first mass-produced engine to run on ethanol when an ethanol-fuelled version was introduced in 1979. The FIASA engine remained in production for twenty-five years until 2001.
Aurelio Lampredi died in Livorno on 1 June 1989. His engineering output spans two of the most consequential chapters in Italian motorsport: the Formula One championship-winning era at Ferrari in the early 1950s, and the rally-dominating decades that followed through Fiat and Lancia. Taken together, his engines powered a Formula One debut win, two consecutive world championships, and a record-setting run of WRC success — a legacy matched by very few engine designers in the history of the sport.