Kaiser Wilhelm's Cable Gram

This article is one of the few from Barney Oldfield's scrapbook that allows us to identify the source: The Toledo Times. The article was originally published sometime shortly after Oldfield's land speed record run with the Blitzen Benz. After his success of setting a 1-mile record of 131.720 mph and a 2-mile record of 142 mph (both with flying starts), Oldifeld took his racer on a national tour to cash in, knowing that people would clamor to see his powerful German machine.
 
The article tells the story of Kaiser Wilhelm II sending a congratulatory cablegram calling Barney a "daring Yankee." It also shares that Barney renamed the car from his original promotional name - the Lightning Benz - after reading that the Kaiser referred to the machine as the Blitzen Benz. Humorously, Oldfield was concerned that "Blitzen" was a vulgar word. To solve the problem one of the organizers of the run rounded up a German shoe cobbler that had settled in the area for a translation. His report was the "Blitzen" was simply the German name for "Lightning." Barney liked the sound of it and began using it.