Last week was an extremely busy one – but very rewarding at the same time. I spent most of it on the road visiting dealers up and down the country.

I had no less than six lunches and dinners with some 160 dealer principals. It didn’t exactly do wonders for my waistline, but it certainly gave me a fascinating insight into what’s happening on your showroom floors.

Overall the dealer meetings were very positive. Many of you were surprised at Nissan’s position on supply – the fact news here is more positive than rivals was especially well received.

I understand that one rival has been forced to take 30 per cent out of their volumes and others have big issues to overcome over the next three months.

Questions were varied too. They ranged from our display standards – including one dealer who wanted to know whether they could have model lambs in their showroom (yes, really) – through to more business-related topics.

The good news was there is clear support from you for our new used car programme, CARED4, plus there was lots of feedback about our stocking scheme. It is clear we have work to do there.

The key message I took out from the meetings, though, was there is real momentum with the brand now and that you, our retail partners, are behind us 100 per cent of the way.

Fleet street

On a separate note I found myself looking jealously across the pond this week to my American counterpart after seeing the news that the NV200 has been selected as the exclusive taxi for New York.

The deal, which starts in 2013, will see at least 250,000 Nissans hit the streets in the famous yellow and black livery. Yes, a quarter of a million!

I bet the champagne corks were popping in Nissan’s American head offices when the papers were signed on that deal.

It just goes to show you how well-regarded Nissans are when it comes to reliability, though – at the end of the day, life doesn’t really get much tougher for a car than being a cab on the streets of NYC.