SCOTTSDALE, AZ.- RM Sotheby’s will offer The Boeckmann Collection across two distinct sales in 2027, featuring 120+ cars that capture the creativity, eccentricity, and unmistakable spirit of California car culture. The collection will headline The Arizona Auction, expanding the event to two days, with 50+ cars crossing the block on January 28, followed by an online sale featuring the remaining 60+ vehicles, with bidding closing February 4. Drawn from a collection assembled over decades by lifelong enthusiast, collector, and Galpin Motors President Beau Boeckmann, this eclectic selection breaks nearly every convention of traditional car collecting.
This is not a collection defined by a single lane of car culture. Hot rods and landmark customs appear alongside muscle cars, Hollywood icons, rare Fords, vivid Porsches, Aston Martins, Lotuses, Mercedes-Benzes, and machines that seem to have escaped from a designer’s sketchbook at midnight. Some carry the glamour of film and television; others recall the sun-soaked post-war days when Southern California beaches, dry lakes, speed shops, and suburban garages became laboratories for a new kind of automotive expression. Among them is George Barris, the legendary custom-car builder and artist whose visionary designs helped turn the automobile into a rolling piece of California theater. Some cars are historically significant, some are outrageous, and some are wonderfully difficult to explain. What unites them is not marque, era, or market hierarchy, but a rarer quality: each one has a pulse.
The collection's roots run directly through the Galpin name, one of the most storied in California automotive history. Long before Beau Boeckmann became a fixture of the custom-car world, Galpin was already blurring the line between dealership and workshop: The company's first “Galpinized” car, a 1952 Ford convertible reworked with Mercury and Lincoln parts, debuted at the Motorama and landed on the cover of Motor Trend, setting a precedent for in-house customization that would define the brand for decades to come.
Under the leadership of the late Bert Boeckmann, who joined Galpin as a salesman in 1953 and built it into the top-volume Ford dealership in the world, that same restless creativity was channeled onto the track. Galpin fielded a West Coast NASCAR team behind driver Ron Hornaday Sr., which captured back-to-back national championships in 1963 and 1964; it backed a stable of dragstrip regulars through the Galpin Ford Drag Club, sending Mustangs and other Fords down the quarter-mile at Southern California strips; and it pushed cars to their limits on the dry lakes and open highways, supporting land-speed and endurance efforts that included a 24-hour endurance record set at Willow Springs Raceway in 1969. That inheritance, equal parts customization, speed, and showmanship, runs through nearly every car in The Boeckmann Collection, a lifelong extension of the culture his family helped build.
“I’ve seen a lot of great collections, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like this. There are no rules to it. You can go from one of the most important customs ever built to a Shelby, a hot rod, some completely bizarre one-off, and then turn the corner and find something you didn’t even know existed. It feels very American and very California,” said Cary Ahl, Car Specialist, RM Sotheby’s. “Beau collected cars because they were interesting, because they had a story, or simply because he thought they were cool. That makes this one of those sales where you’re going to have just as much fun walking around and discovering what’s there as you are watching the cars cross the block.”
Featured Lots
1932 Ford Highboy Roadster “The Edelbrock Special” — $400,000 - $600,000 USD
Built and raced by Bill Likes, machine shop operator for performance equipment titan Vic Edelbrock Sr., the Edelbrock Special was highly successful in RTA and SCTA competition throughout the 1950s, setting numerous land-speed records at legendary venues including Bonneville and El Mirage. A textbook example of a “’29 Roadster on Deuce rails,” it combines Ford Model A bodywork with a 1932 Ford chassis.
Power comes from an over-bored, de-stroked Ford flathead V-8 fitted with Edelbrock heads and an Edelbrock intake crowned by triple Stromberg carburetors. Period competition equipment includes a Halibrand quick-change rear end, Harman & Collins magneto, flex-pipe side-exit exhausts, bomber seats, and Stewart-Warner gauges set into an engine-turned dash. Beautifully restored to its as-raced appearance and documented with trophies, timing slips and placards, historic images, and more, it is a quintessential highboy roadster from hot rodding’s golden era with remarkable provenance.
2005 Galpin GTR1— $550,000 - $750,000 USD
As the sole coachbuilt 2005-2006 generation Ford GT, the “GTR1” was developed by Galpin Auto Sports in collaboration with Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters as a modern tribute to Ford’s legendary GT racing heritage. Unveiled at the 2013 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance concept lawn, the GTR1 was conceived as an ultra-high-performance road car blending state-of-the-art design featuring bespoke carbon fiber bodywork, a dramatically reshaped aluminum chassis, and with a modified, supercharged 5.4-liter V-8 producing more than 1,000 horsepower. Designed to exceed 220 mph, the GTR1 combined American muscle with exotic car performance and craftsmanship, representing one of the most ambitious and exclusive creations ever produced by Galpin Auto Sports.
1984 Porsche 969 Turbo by Rinspeed — $225,000 - $275,000 USD
One of as few as 12 Rinspeed 969 Turbos produced, this striking example began life as a Swiss-delivery 1984 Porsche 930 Turbo before receiving Rinspeed’s radical custom bodywork. Unveiled at the 1985 Geneva Motor Show, the 969 represented Rinspeed’s outrageous interpretation of the 911 Turbo, featuring pop-up headlights, pronounced side strakes, dramatically flared rear quarters, and distinctive rear bodywork. Purchased by Donald L. Weber after seeing the car at Geneva, it remained in his collection for 36 years and accumulated fewer than 10,000 miles. Beneath its extravagant styling, the car retains its original 3.3-liter turbocharged flat-six, producing 300 horsepower and paired with a four-speed manual transmission, making it a rare and fascinating example of Rinspeed’s ambitious 1980s design philosophy.
1993 Aston Martin Virage ‘Vacances’ Shooting Brake — $200,000 - $250,000 USD
Few cars capture the eccentric ingenuity of Aston Martin's Works Service quite like the Virage "Vacances" Shooting Brake. Born from a customer request rather than a factory plan, it began life as a standard Virage saloon before Works Service stretched it roughly 12 inches, added a pair of rear doors, and upgraded it to 6.3-liter specification for German collector Dr. Roland Müller, who nicknamed it "Vacances" for the holidays he used it for—a car so striking that Prince Jefri of Brunei commissioned six further, even longer examples after seeing it at the factory. In total, just seven were ever built, making the Vacances one of the rarest and most curious variants to emerge from Aston Martin's coachbuilding tradition.
1970 Barris T Buggy — $25,000 - $35,000 USD
Perhaps the most famous of the twelve T Buggy examples built, this distinctive example was designed by legendary customizer George Barris in 1970 during the height of the American dune buggy craze. Based on a shortened Volkswagen Beetle chassis and clothed in a fiberglass body, the T Buggy combined the proportions and ruggedness of a dune buggy with exaggerated styling cues inspired by the Ford Model T, including antique-style headlamps, a miniature radiator grille, squared-off fenders, and vintage-inspired trim. The model was offered in open, Landau, and C-Cab configurations and was promoted through magazine advertising and a popular MPC scale model kit. This open-top example has remained a fixture of Southern California car culture as it was notably featured on the cover of the September 1970 issue of Hot Rod, adding period-correct provenance to one of Barris’s most unusual and entertaining creations.
