For some weeks now – and for the foreseeable future – the AM team has been working at home and our Nissan X-Trail has mainly been sitting idle on the drive. 

But before the tightest restrictions, it was possible to make visits to family and friends (while keeping the required distance).

And keeping in contact meant delivering shopping and other essentials for isolated parents.

The X-Trail proved ideal for this because of its load carrying capacity and ease of use.

To begin with, the push button function to open and close the boot and the flat entrance made it as effortless as possible to slide boxes of food into place in the 1,996-litres of space liberated by folding all the rear seats.

While there are floor panels concealing the two additional seats, they didn’t obstruct movement of goods, across a near-flat space.

The movement of parts of the floor to create separated loading areas is a useful touch to prevent items moving around.

It’s a shame in this instance that those additional, redundant seats meant the car lacks that bit of extra storage available under the boot floor. 

Ease of access to items behind the front passengers is also aided by the rear doors swinging open nearly 80-degrees, reducing the risk of knocked elbows or dinged knuckles when pulling out heavy items. 

Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders’ (SMMT) figures reveal a 181% increase in registrations year-to-date to February.

I hope buyers have found the X-Trail as useful I have in this challenging time.