Frère was born in Le Havre in 1917. Before making his name in motorsport, he was a champion rower, winning three Belgian national titles. In 1946 and 1947 he won the national coxless four championship, and in 1946 he also won with the coxed four — a level of athletic achievement rarely associated with racing drivers of his era.
Frère made his Formula One World Championship debut on 22 June 1952 and participated in a total of eleven championship Grands Prix across several seasons, driving for the Ferrari works team among others. He achieved a single podium finish and accumulated eleven championship points. Away from the world championship, he was active in non-championship Formula One events, winning the 1952 Grand Prix des Frontières and the 1960 VI South African Grand Prix.
His greatest achievement as a racing driver came at the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he partnered fellow Belgian Olivier Gendebien in a Ferrari to overall victory. It was a fitting culmination to his active career; he retired from racing immediately afterward.
After stepping back from competition in 1960, Frère built a second career of comparable distinction as an automotive journalist. He served for many years as European Editor of Road and Track magazine and maintained close professional relationships with engineers at Honda and Mazda, among other manufacturers. He was also a consultant to automobile companies and tested a wide range of road and racing cars in that capacity.
In 1963, Frère published Sports Car and Competition Driving, a book that remains a foundational text in the field. He was among the first writers, alongside Piero Taruffi and Denis Jenkinson, to treat motorsport as a learnable and teachable discipline that could be systematically analyzed. The book influenced the development of competition driving schools founded by Jim Russell, Bob Bondurant, and others.
Frère was widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on Porsche, particularly the Porsche 911. He wrote the definitive account of the 911's development, titled The Porsche 911 Story, and maintained a long advisory relationship with Porsche. Ruf Automobile's Alois Ruf, one of the most respected independent Porsche developers, consulted Frère during the development of the RGT8 model. In 2003, at the age of 86, Frère tested and demonstrated the Audi R8 on the Test Day of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, believed to make him the oldest person to drive a then-current sportscar in a competitive context.
In 1967, Frère made a brief cameo appearance in the Belgian film The Departure, about a car-obsessed young man trying to obtain a Porsche 911 for a race. Only weeks before his 90th birthday in January 2007, he was seriously injured in an accident near the Nürburgring and spent fourteen days in intensive care. He died on 23 February 2008 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, at the age of 91.
Turn 15 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, formerly part of the Stavelot complex, has been renamed in Frère's honour. His legacy rests on two foundations: a racing career that peaked with Le Mans victory and produced credible Formula One results, and a body of writing that helped transform how competitive driving was understood and taught. In both disciplines — on the track and at the typewriter — he was regarded by peers as exceptional.