Osella was born in Volpiano, near Turin, to Luigi and Maria Osella. His parents operated a grocery store and a transport company in Volpiano until after the Second World War, when Luigi Osella took over a garage in central Turin. Enzo's first job after school was at a gravel plant before he began assisting his father as a mechanic.
One of his father's regular clients was an amateur rally driver who encouraged Enzo to join him as a co-driver and navigator. From 1957, Osella competed as a co-driver in several events, including the Sestriere Rally. He later switched to the driver's seat, initially borrowing his sister's Fiat 600 to race before acquiring a Lotus 11. He modified the Lotus himself, fitting it with an Osca engine and an Alfa Romeo differential, and took part in hillclimb competitions.
In 1963, Carlo Abarth invited Osella to replace Mario Poltronieri as test driver for Abarth's racing cars and motorsport team in Turin. The role gave Osella invaluable exposure to chassis design, engine tuning, and team management. He also worked as a mechanic and driver supervisor during this period, building a comprehensive technical foundation.
At the end of 1964, Osella went into business for himself, taking over an Abarth factory agency in Turin. When Carlo Abarth sold the Abarth name rights and production facilities to Fiat in 1971 and retired to Vienna, Osella seized the opportunity. He purchased the entire racing department and began operating it under the name Osella Corse.
Under Osella's leadership, Osella Corse spent several years competing primarily in hillclimbing, Can-Am, Formula Three, and Formula Two. The team developed a reputation for resourcefulness and technical ingenuity on limited budgets, qualities that would define its approach when it stepped up to the top tier of the sport.
In 1980, Osella entered Formula One as a constructor. The Osella FA1 family of cars, which evolved through multiple iterations over the following decade, was developed and built in-house. The team operated with modest funding by Grand Prix standards but consistently put cars on the grid throughout the 1980s, one of the most competitive eras in Formula One history.
The Osella Formula One team participated in 132 Grands Prix between 1980 and 1990. Despite the chronic financial constraints that beset small independent constructors of the era, the team achieved three top-six championship finishes and scored five world championship points. The cars were powered at various times by Ford Cosworth, Alfa Romeo, and Osella's own turbocharged engines as the sport transitioned through the turbo era of the mid-1980s.
Drivers who raced for Osella during this period included Piercarlo Ghinzani, Huub Rothengatter, and a number of other European drivers seeking Formula One opportunities through the team's modest but persistent operation. The team was a consistent backmarker presence but embodied the spirit of the small constructor that had characterised Formula One's earlier decades.
In 1990, Osella retired from Formula One and relocated the team to Verolengo, in the Turin metropolitan area. The focus returned to sports car racing and hillclimb competition, the disciplines where the team's origins lay. Osella Corse continued to be active in Italian national racing series and hillclimb events after the Formula One chapter closed.
Enzo Osella was married and had two children. His son died in 1991. Osella himself died on 27 September 2025 at the age of 86, ending a career that spanned more than six decades in motorsport. He was one of the last of a generation of Italian constructors who built, owned, and operated their own Formula One teams from the ground up, driven by passion for engineering and competition rather than corporate backing.