When Leyland Motors, the new owners of Standard, indicated it wished to assume its own production of Triumph cars in Australia, AMI needed to find another car to assemble. The answer came with Mercedes-Benz. In 1958 the company negotiated an agreement with Daimler-Benz to assemble and distribute Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Australia. In recognition of this new agreement the company was renamed Australian Motor Industries and a new subsidiary company was formed to handle the Mercedes-Benz franchise. Passenger vehicle sales show 729 locally assembled Mercedes-Benz cars were sold between July 1959 and June 1960. By 1960 Mercedes-Benz had increased passenger car sales in Australia by 10 fold annually, selling as many cars per year as had been sold in the first fifty years.