Cast your mind back to 2004 – Ian Thorpe won two gold medals at his last Olympic Games in Athens, Shrek 2 was the biggest movie of the year and inaugural Australian Idol star Shannon Noll’s cover of Moving Pictures’ What About Me dominated the airwaves.

It was also the year that Toyota released its fifth-generation HiAce workhorse van, which is finally being retired after 15 years of trusty service and approximately 150,000 Australian sales.

A 15-year life cycle is a long time in the automotive industry, meaning the all-new sixth-generation HiAce is expected to be a markedly different vehicle to the one it replaces.

So just how much better is Toyota’s new HiAce?