Enzo Coloni, nicknamed "Il lupo" (the wolf) for his aggressive racing style, had competed in Italian Formula 3 and European Formula 2 before retiring from driving at the end of 1982 to manage his own team. The wolf motif would later appear in the team's logo.
In the junior categories Coloni was immediately successful. The Italian Formula 3 championship drivers' title fell to the team three consecutive times: Enzo Coloni himself in 1982, Ivan Capelli in 1983, and Alessandro Santin in 1984. In 1986 Nicola Larini won the Italian F3 title again, and the team also fielded Gabriele Tarquini in Formula 3000. When the FIA announced that turbocharged engines would be banned from Formula One from 1989, making entry costs more accessible, Coloni saw an opportunity to step up.
Coloni made its Formula One debut at the 1987 Italian Grand Prix, where Nicola Larini failed to qualify the yellow FC187 — a car designed by Roberto Ori, a former Dallara apprentice, and powered by a Cosworth DFZ prepared by Novamotor. The team's first race start came at the 1987 Spanish Grand Prix, where Larini retired mechanically.
The 1988 season was the team's first full campaign. New driver Gabriele Tarquini qualified regularly with the FC188, and the team recorded its best-ever Formula One result when Tarquini finished eighth at the 1988 Canadian Grand Prix. A lack of development funding meant performance slipped as the year progressed, but that Canadian result remained Coloni's peak.
For 1989 the team entered two cars for Roberto Moreno and French newcomer Pierre-Henri Raphanel with FC188B chassis. The updated cars were hard to handle and approximately 20 km/h slower than the rest of the field. Both drivers qualified for the Monaco Grand Prix, Coloni's only double-appearance that year. A new car, the Coloni C3 designed by former AGS engineer Christian Vanderpleyn, appeared mid-season in Canada; it was described as a fundamentally sound design but suffered from a lack of testing. Moreno managed to qualify the C3 at three further events before the season ended.
For 1990 Coloni entered into a partnership with Subaru, the automobile branch of Fuji Heavy Industries. Subaru took a 51 percent stake in the team and supplied a new flat-12 engine designed by Carlo Chiti. However, the engine was producing no more than 500 bhp at the start of the season, and the car — a C3 modified to accept the new unit — was assembled for the first time in the pit lane at Phoenix, where a brief shakedown took place in a nearby supermarket car park. The combination was overweight by around 140 kg and lacked aerodynamic downforce.
New driver Bertrand Gachot was unable to prequalify the car at a single round during the first part of the season. Subaru removed Enzo Coloni from his sporting director role in May but saw no improvement and withdrew from the partnership, selling the team back to Coloni debt-free but without engines or sponsors. A supply of Ford-Cosworth engines was secured from Langford & Peck by the German Grand Prix, and a lightly revised C3C appeared, but qualification remained out of reach. The team failed to start a single race in 1990.
The 1991 Coloni operation comprised just six people and ran a single car — an updated C3 now designated C4, developed with input from students at the University of Perugia. Enzo Coloni had hoped to sign Andrea de Cesaris, but the Italian driver chose Jordan. Portuguese driver Pedro Chaves, who had won the 1990 British Formula 3000 series, was given the car instead. Chaves never escaped the prequalification session and left after the Portuguese Grand Prix. Japanese driver Naoki Hattori took over for the final two rounds but also failed to prequalify.
At the end of 1991 Enzo Coloni sold the team to Andrea Sassetti, who renamed it Andrea Moda Formula for 1992.
Under Enzo Coloni's son Paolo, the organisation returned to Formula 3 and then competed in International Formula 3000 from 1997 onward with considerable success. In Formula 3000's 2002 season, Giorgio Pantano finished as runner-up and the team won three races between Pantano and Enrico Toccacelo. The team continued into the GP2 Series until an abrupt mid-season departure in 2012. Between 2006 and 2009 the team ran as Fisichella Motor Sport under an arrangement with Formula One driver Giancarlo Fisichella and his manager Enrico Zanarini.
Coloni's Formula One record — 14 starts from 82 attempts — places it among the least successful constructors ever to contest the World Championship. The team's chronic underfunding and the technical and commercial miscalculations of the Subaru partnership meant that genuine competitiveness was never achieved after the promising 1988 season. In junior categories, however, the Coloni name carried genuine prestige, and the organisation's success in developing drivers and winning championships in Formula 3 and Formula 3000 represented its most lasting contribution to motorsport.