The new Toyota Supra, which is shaping up to be the longest teaser of all time, made a recent visit to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, where a disguised A90 prototype climbed the famous hill course and was showcased statically at a special event for Supra enthusiasts.

The fifth-generation Supra was at all times chaperoned by chief engineer Tetsuya Tada, who gave an interview to Toyota GB. It contains plenty of interesting bits about the upcoming sports car co-developed with BMW, and some behind the scenes insights from the frank CE and car enthusiast. He’s one, it’s obvious.

How about topics like “the happiest day of his life,” the revival of Toyota’s much-anticipated Three Brothers (that’s of course the Supra, Celica and MR2 of the 90s) and the Buzzfeed-style “Five Things To Know About The New Supra”? Or trying to convince hardcore Supra fans that this new one is worthy? You’ll want to read on.

According to Tada, he has been working on the Supra project for nearly seven years (since 2012), which is much longer than the typical three years of a normal car development cycle because “we wanted to make absolutely sure it was right.” As such, the Goodwood unveiling of what’s essentially the car we can buy gave Tada much joy, not unlike a new father taking his baby out to the park for the first time.

“I’m just so happy that we’ve made it to this point. I’ve finally been able to reveal the car to the UK; it’s the happiest day of my life. And to drive it up the hill at Goodwood was a really exciting experience.

“When I was sitting in the queue to go up the hill at Goodwood, I was surrounded by all these amazing supercars and thinking – this is the cheapest car in the line by a long way, probably about a tenth of the price – but we got the biggest cheer!” he exclaimed.

Tada is of course no newbie to sports cars, having been the man behind the Toyota 86 a.k.a. GT86. He says that Toyota put what it learned with the GT86 to good use with the Supra, which will be clearly superior to its smaller brother in all aspects.

“Before the GT86 arrived, Toyota had not produced a sports car for a while, so there was a lot of ground to catch up. But for the Supra project we already had the experience from developing the GT86 and were able to start from a much higher level. This meant we were aiming for a much higher level in the finished car.

“Akio (Toyoda, the president) has always said that as a company he would like to have Three Brothers, with the GT86 in the middle and Supra as the big brother. So we’ve tried to aim for the Supra to offer an overwhelming superiority in all attributes. For example, people were happy that the GT86 had a very low centre of gravity, but the Supra has an even lower centre of gravity, and its body rigidity is twice that of the GT86,” Tada revealed.

“It’s actually the same level of rigidity as the Lexus LFA supercar, and it has been achieved without using carbon fibre so we could keep the price point at an affordable level. That was the most difficult thing to achieve,” he added.

If the new Supra looks wide but surprisingly short, your eyes aren’t fooling you. “The track width is also wider, of course. But it may surprise people to know that the new Supra has a shorter wheelbase than the GT86. The car was developed with a specific ratio of wheelbase and track in mind, and I think we’ve been able to achieve the balance that we were looking for,” Tada said.

Many believe that old is gold, and no more so when it comes to famous sports cars. One can imagine that despite the expected technical brilliance of the A90, Supra fans and owners will be the hardest bunch to convince that the new one is worthy.

“I’m really looking forward to hearing from them, actually. Thinking back to the introduction of the GT86, some owners of classic AE86 models were quite hard to please and were very critical of the new car. So it may be similar with this car. I know there are hardcore owners of the previous generations out there and it may be hard to convince them just by introducing a new car.

“But I have an open stance and want to offer my respect for the older Supra models. In turn, I hope the owners will be open enough to see what the new model is all about, even if it takes them some time to fully accept it,” Tada said.

Lastly, Tada listed five things about the fifth-generation Supra that we should know, the five essentials. “First of all, the Supra has always had an inline six-cylinder engine, and of course we have that with the new car, too,” the engineer said.

He was recently quoted talking about a four-cylinder variant, so we know for sure that there will be two engines to choose from. The four-pot Supra will be lighter and have sharper turn-in thanks to “much better weight distribution.” Thinking of a 2JZ engine swap? “Please buy the four-cylinder. It will be much cheaper,” Tada quipped. Yup, that’s a chief engineer of a new car, responding like that to throwing out his car’s new motor for a 20-year old engine. Amazing.

“Secondly, all generations had a front-mounted engine and rear-wheel drive; that is also the same here. I think for number three I would like to point out its design. We’ve taken cues from the A80 (fourth-gen Supra) and, although the design is not the same, we carried elements over so that when people look at the new car they can tell immediately that it is a Supra.

“Number four is that if you look across the previous generations, each of them have been exciting in their own right and in their own era. We wanted to achieve the same thing with this new-generation car, and I believe that when it goes on sale next year it will be the most fun-to-drive car in its class.

Finally, appreciate this car as there won’t be any like it anymore in a changed landscape, from an enthusiast to another. The new Supra is Toyota’s “last present” to those who love sports cars as we know it today.

“Looking at the current automotive industry, the talk is all about autonomous driving, electrification and artificial intelligence. What that’s doing is giving rise to a lot of strict regulations, and that limits our capacity to make emotional sports cars; it’s getting much more difficult to do that. So for the fifth point, I think the new Supra will be the last present from Toyota to those who enjoy hearing the pleasing sound of a pure petrol engine at high revs,” Tada said.

“Those are my five highlights, and I hope that people will be able to enjoy the new Supra for a long time to come. Perhaps in another 30 years we will be able to meet again and talk about how good it was,” he ended.

We won’t be betting against that happening; after all, old is gold. OK, enough foreplay already, Toyota.

GALLERY: 2019 Toyota Supra spyshots