Right before the current season of the wildly popular car customizing show debuted on MTV, we headed out to Galpin Auto Sports to talk to GAS owner and PMR cast member Beau Boeckmann. This season marks the second year the show has been at GAS and the first year Trifecta finalist and CAE contributor Zee Siddiqi has been on board. Here's what Beau had to say.
Car Audio and Electronics: How did you get started in the automotive business?
Beau Boeckmann: I was born into it. My father's been at Galpin since 1953, so this is the 54th year in business at Galpin. So I literally grew up on the showroom floor. And what's kind of cool about Galpin is we've been customizing cars since 1953. In fact there's a cover of Motor Trend with a 1952 Ford on it that we customized. So we've been doing that for as long as I've been alive ... To me, custom is normal. I didn't understand why anyone would have a stock car. I still don't, to be honest with you... So when I got the opportunity to do it myself I jumped into it.
CAE: What is the shop's bread-and-butter job? What do you get requested most often?
Well, it's really two main things: wheels and tires, and audio/video work and nav. So, we get everything from Lamborghinis and Ferraris in here doing high-end systems to like me, I drive a big SUV because I've got kids. ... When I started building custom cars back in about 2001, when kind of I took over all of our customizing, I had to customize a new car and then figure out how I was going to sell it. And I had to build some type of a compromise because I'm building it for me, but someone else has to fall in love with it. And thank God that has always happened. On the show, we can just [be] as crazy, crazy as we want to, and it's just been a great experience for all of us. And we all learn. This business is constantly about growing and evolving and learning and adapting to the latest technologies, so the show really gives us an advantage because we get to preview some things before they come out to the public and really figure out how to utilize a lot of this technology in a very creative way. So it's great and it gives a kind of benefit to the retail shop because all the work we do back here can translate to customers when they come in.
Modesty prevails between Beau...
Modesty prevails between Beau and Mad Mike.
CAE: Why did you decide to get involved with Pimp My Ride? Did you actively pursue it?
It's kind of funny because I always really loved the show. When I watched it I would see the car in the beginning and during the first commercial break I would write down everything I would do to the car ... and then I'd compare it to see how the show did it... [A] mutual friend, actually from Ford Global Entertainment, Al Uzielli, who's one of the Ford family members, introduced me to Rick [Hurvitz] and Larry [Hochberg], the executive producers. And we just hit it off and became friends. They came out, we did a couple of events here at Galpin, and one day Larry came into my office and said, "Beau, what would you think if we did the show here?" And I went, "Fantastic. That would be a lot of fun." Sixty days later, I think it was, we went from having a shell to having a show... we kind of had everything down except the audio/video area. And actually the show really helped with that because [when] we started off, we got Mad Mike and it kind of helped attract some wonderful talent like Zee, who's the best I've ever seen and the best I've ever worked with. So it's a real honor and a pleasure working with these guys.
CAE: How long would you like the show to be here at GAS?
You know, it works great for us and we love it, so as long as they'll have us, we'll have them. It is absolutely grueling. We've been shooting now 7 days a week for 8 months straight. You gotta take breaks to go to SEMA and CES, but when they're on break, other guys are working... So when you get where we are at the end, pretty much wrapping up the season, everyone's a bit tired, but you know very excited too.
Beau signs autographs for...
Beau signs autographs for his fans after a show.
CAE: Do you find that the show has actually improved your number of walk-in clients?
Absolutely. The kind of difficult thing is people don't know if this is for real or if this is TV. And what we're doing is for real. So, we get guys who come in and say, "Let's see what you can do." And we blow them away and they tell their friends, and the friends come in, so that's kind of the snowball effect of it. But for those who think it's just a TV show, I love proving them wrong.
CAE: So do you actually build them? Do people walk in asking for Pimp My Ride-style vehicles?
Yeah, absolutely. And we have a lot of corporate clients too that we've built for. We did the Guillermobile for the Jimmy Kimmel Show. We did a very cool vehicle for Pontiac. We are in the middle now of doing a couple other interesting things.
Zee with Beau and Diggity...
Zee with Beau and Diggity.
CAE: It seems like you have a lot of input on the modifications on these cars. How integrated are you in the design?
Every part of it. Each car has a team that works on it. And that team and I meet before the meeting and we have a creative and we walk through the ideas and we decide on some things. Then we come back and hone it down...
CAE: What are your favorite cars?
Well, I'm a Ford guy. I'm a huge Shelby fan. We've got five Shelbys in the collection. My one particular favorite car that we have is actually a car built by Big Daddy Roth called Rotar. It's actually a flying car that actually works and it's on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum right now. The others I like are the very humble cars. There's a car called the Toad built by Von Dutch in 1970 and it was built from old road signs, just pieces of parts, a BMW Isetta engine, and he painted it, pinstriped it. I just love that car. And I have a car that he customized, a 1954 Jag XK 140 that is just the polar opposite. It's just this beautiful elegant car. ... You want a particular, we've got a 1970 Shelby GT350 that was sold new here at Galpin Ford. I believe it's one of three done in that color combination so it sort of came back home to Galpin. I have a special place in my heart for that car as well. It's fun to drive.
The California seal of approval....
The California seal of approval. Guess who owns this vehicle.
CAE: Well, thanks so much. It's nice to talk to someone with such a passion for what he does.
Hey, the whole reason this place exists is because I'm passionate about automobiles and customizing. This is what I live for. This is what I wake up to do after dreaming about it all night to do. This is the dream job of dream jobs. Yeah, there's some hard work, nothing's easy in life, but I wouldn't want to do anything else.