Metro Man: Drive It Again, Billy

Faset Joaquin Seay. With a name like that, you would assume "Billy," as he was called, was from somewhere exotic like French Morocco. But he was just a wide-eyed kid with a flat-top haircut from tiny Bryson City in remote western North Carolina, where stock-car racing and making moonshine were a way of life.

Until 1960 Billy had never been more than a couple of hundred miles from home. That year he dropped out of North Carolina State College and, with brother Buddy, set out for Casablanca. Their father had a Southern restaurant and bar there with a backroom poker game for GI’s on leave and American expatriates passing through. They had convinced their father a year of foreign travel would do wonders for their education.

They arrived in Casablanca with no money, jobs or means of transportation. One of their father’s friends, a SeÒor Solano, had a car in storage pledged for a debt that was never paid. He told Buddy it was his if he wanted it. The car was an exotic 1948 Jaguar Mark IV Drop-Head (convertible), one of only 31 built.

After an engine overhaul and a paint job for the car, Billy and Buddy were cruising around Casablanca to the amazement of the locals who laughed at the crazy Americans in the gas-guzzling behemoth.

To finance their playboy lifestyle, they did odd jobs – from installing pinball machines to selling cars at military bases. One job was helping with a USO party thrown by the American Consulate for the visiting 6th Fleet. Billy was to chauffeur respectable local girls to the party and flip hamburgers once there. He was not allowed to dance with the young ladies.

Among the heavily chaperoned young women was 18-year-old Irene Rimokh, whose ancestors had fled Spain many generations back as Sephardic Jews escaping the Inquisition.

It was love at first sight, but Billy still does not know if it was his blue eyes or the Jag that dazzled Irene more. He didn’t speak any French, and Irene’s schoolbook English was equally limited. But the language of love soon had them communicating fluently.

Their courtship was conducted in the Jag. But Billy’s year of travel was soon up, and he needed to get back in school. He did not want to return to the States and decided to try his luck in France at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. But first he bought a diamond ring at the PX and proposed to Irene. Three weeks later he was off to the City of Lights; Irene stayed home to pursue her own studies in drama at the Casablanca Conservatory.

Billy returned for the winter holidays and the next summer to be with Irene and the Jag. Irene earned the highest honors awarded in nine years by the Conservatory and was given a full scholarship to a top drama school in Paris. That fall they left for Paris and an unforgettable year during which Irene saw her first snowflake and Billy learned to love the theater.

In December, Buddy decided to return to America. The night before he left, he told Billy he had sold the car for $500 to pay a debt. Billy was devastated, but he did have Irene. In February 1964 Billy and Irene were married in Gibraltar, followed by a traditional Moroccan ceremony and another big party in Casablanca.

To build a real life for his bride, Billy needed to finish his education. He re-enrolled at N.C. State while Irene supported them with a bank job and lunch-time poker winnings. A year after graduation they moved to Atlanta, where Bill co-founded the architectural firm of Nichols, Bray, Carter, Seay. Irene earned a master’s degree at Georgia State University and taught French in DeKalb County high schools until becoming a French lecturer at Emory University.

I met Billy (he was now Bill) in 1978, when we were both active in what is now the Midtown Alliance. Bill had a vision of what Midtown would become and had begun buying real estate in the area, and we formed a partnership. Over the next 10 years we acquired about 35 commercial properties along MARTA’s Peachtree line.

By 1985 Midtown was booming and so was our business. Bill had always had a soft spot in his heart for the Jaguar and had traced the current owner to Montreal, where he had immigrated, flying the car over on Air France. What’s more, the Jag was available. Irene thought they were going to Montreal to look at the car. Bill said they were going there to buy it at any price and ended up with $100 bills in the bottom of his running shoes.

Most of the next 20 years, the Jag was in and out of the shop having its motor rebuilt, its body painted the original suede green, a new top installed and more.

Now, Bill and Irene drive around Intown remembering the good old days in Casablanca and reliving the more than 45 years the car has been a part of their love affair.