The W12 engine at the heart of Life's project was designed by Franco Rocchi, a former Ferrari engineer responsible for Ferrari's 3-litre V8 used in the 1970s 308 GTB and GTS road cars. Rocchi's interest in the W12 configuration traced back to a 1967 prototype — a single-module W3 of 500 cc conceived as a building block for a planned 3-litre W18 Ferrari engine. After leaving Ferrari in 1980, Rocchi continued privately refining the concept.
The architecture arranged three banks of four double-overhead-cam cylinders in a broad-arrow layout — compact like a V8 in length but taller. A conceptually similar engine was developed independently in France by Guy Nègre of Moteurs Guy Nègre, tested in 1989 in an AGS JH22 chassis, though the two projects shared no design lineage. Rocchi's W12 was completed during the first half of the 1989 Formula One season, just as the sport had banned turbocharged engines and opened the door to naturally aspirated experimentation. Ernesto Vita originally planned to sell the engine concept to an established team, but finding no buyers, resolved to enter Formula One himself.
Lacking the resources to build a chassis, Life acquired an unsold Formula One chassis originally designed by Richard Divila for Lamberto Leoni's abortive First Racing team. The car was fitted with the W12 and designated the Life L190. Engineering work was overseen by Gianni Marelli, another former Ferrari employee. The car was tested briefly at Vallelunga and Monza before the season began.
The W12's performance proved drastically inadequate. Its widely reported output of 470 bhp compared poorly with the 600–700 bhp produced by rival normally aspirated units. Some accounts, including a claim by driver Bruno Giacomelli, suggested the true figure was barely above 300 bhp. The L190 chassis itself was one of the heaviest in the field at 530 kg. Combined, the car's pace was described as no faster than a contemporary Formula 3 machine — it would have been outclassed even in Formula 3000.
Life attempted pre-qualifying at all 14 rounds of the 1990 World Championship, failing every time. Gary Brabham, son of triple world champion Jack Brabham, was the team's first driver but departed after failing to pre-qualify twice. He noted that the car lacked a functioning tachometer and that the team had to borrow a tyre pressure gauge from the EuroBrun squad. Brabham unsuccessfully urged Vita to switch to a Judd CV V8.
Bruno Giacomelli, an Italian veteran who had last raced in Formula One in 1983, replaced Brabham and completed the bulk of the season. The most laps Giacomelli ever ran in a pre-qualifying session was twenty-two, at Silverstone. At the 1990 San Marino Grand Prix he admitted fearing being struck from behind given the car's pace differential. An infamous result at that event saw his car stall at the pit-lane exit on the out lap, yet the transponder remained active, recording a time while the car was under tow.
For the Portuguese Grand Prix, the team made the enormous undertaking of installing a Judd CV V8 in place of the W12 in under three weeks — a significant logistical feat for a team of nine people. The car successfully completed laps of Estoril in pre-qualifying before the engine cover detached and flew off. Life made its final appearance at the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez and then withdrew before the last two races of the season.
The race team at most events consisted of nine people: Ernesto Vita's wife Francesca Papa, team manager Sergio Barbasio, test driver Franco Scapini, engineer Maurizio Ferrari, one trucker-mechanic, and three mechanics including chief mechanic Oliver Piazzi. The headquarters were initially split between technical offices in Reggio Emilia and a factory in Formigine near Modena, later consolidated in Formigine. Facilities included a Borghi e Severi dynamometer bench with AVL datalogging systems.
The Life W12 story endures as the definitive cautionary tale of under-resourced technical ambition in Formula One. The team's entire grid of competitors, from Ferrari's V12 to the Renault and Honda V10s used by Williams and McLaren, operated at a power level roughly double what Life could muster. The episode is routinely cited in discussions of the sport's most extreme qualifying failures.
The Life L190 chassis was fully restored in 2009 by Oliver Piazzi and appeared at the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed with its original W12 engine reinstalled. It completed two successful hill-climb runs, driven by Arturo Merzario and Lorenzo Prandina, who at that time owned the car.