Bidding on the new Toyota-Mazda "plant" was by invitation only, and Alabama didn't know it was vying for an automobile company until deep in the game. And then it found out there were two, and those two wanted to build something "never done before on American soil."

That's Shane Davis remembering. He's head of urban development for Huntsville, which eventually did win the twin plants coming to the city's extreme west side near Interstate 565.

The project would become known among the close-knit group of Alabama recruiters by the code name "New World."

Davis and his counterpart at the state level, Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield, are the two field coaches whose teams handled the rapid fire of questions and answers about Huntsville's site that started late August and ran through the holidays.

Davis said his team was contacted in August by the professional services and commercial real estate company JLL. The city was one of a small number being asked to open discussions about a "large O.E.M (Original Equipment Manufacturer.")

As Huntsville stayed in the hunt, Davis learned it was an automobile plant, but not exactly. "You're talking two auto plants on the same campus, with their own independent lines making two separate vehicles, but also having a joint venture in some shared space," Davis said.

The partnership is to research and develop cars of the future, likely electric. "It's independent auto assembly lines plus a joint venture," Davis said, "That's like three entities on one campus."

It was unprecedented, so Alabama's teams were working with, as Davis put it, "companies trying to lay out what that looks like. It's a very fluid process that changed almost daily at times."

"You've got to stay on top of everything," Steve Sewell, executive vice president of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, said of the state's role. "You have to be thinking of what's next. Everything you can put in front of them has to demonstrate your state's effectiveness."

Day to day, that could mean "22 people on a conference call going over a development agreement," Davis said. It could mean three or four questions in the late afternoon that need answers by the next morning, "so you're giving them the information to continue to make decisions on their end."

"And in the middle of it, we needed more land ...," Davis laughed. "You get a call that says, 'I think we're going to need more acres to make our plan fit.' It's Wednesday afternoon. A decision is going to be made on Friday.

"That gives me 24 hours to get in the car and go talk to landowners and say, 'Hey, can't tell you what we're doing, but it's an economic development project and we need to get an option on this little piece of property.'"

Where was Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle? "In the meetings and on the conference calls," Davis said. "He's not the type who wants to be briefed on where we stand."

Battle put in those hours, Davis said, "so, when it comes down to those final high-level decisions, he's been through it from the ditch to the top, he knows every minute detail and can make a call on the fly."

It wasn't Canfield's first time around the track, either. He's been commerce secretary since 2011. Just this past year, Alabama's auto companies have announced $3.2 billion in projects within the state, including major expansions at Honda and Mercedes-Benz.

Toyota is now saying the site and its location were the key decision drivers, but Alabama's recruiters think it was more than that.

Canfield thinks Alabama's existing relationship with Toyota sealed the deal. The company broke ground in 2001 on an engine plant in Huntsville, and it has expanded that plant four times and invested almost $1 billion there. It now employs more than 1,400 people.

"In business, particularly when you're working with Japanese companies, relationships mean an awful lot," Canfield said. "In this case, if you're going to invest $1.6 billion, you're putting a lot of capital at risk. If you have a relationship with a state and local government that you trust, you can go into that relationship knowing you've mitigated your risk."

Davis agreed relationships were key. "I don't think it was our site as much as it was our community," Davis said of the Huntsville area. "Like I told our team, it was invitation-only, 16-20 sites, and they're all winning sites. They've all got the right land size, they've probably got the utilities.

"I think our community having a site that close to a major metro center appealed a lot," he said. "A lot of these plants are in rural areas. They're tagged Some City, USA, but when you go visit it's off the beaten path 20 or 30 miles from the city core. Being 10 minutes from an urban core had its advantages...."

Davis cited Huntsville's workforce development plan and investments in education by all three systems in the county and in Limestone County.

"Whether the career readiness is going to college or learn that skill like 3D printing, that's what the schools are doing," he said. "We've got the workforce and the system in place that replenishes that workforce. And it's bigger than Huntsville. It makes my job and our team's job a little easier if you have something to showcase. You just show it exactly like it is. You don't have to sugarcoat it. "

Now, the deal has been signed and the second part of the project begins: building the infrastructure needed for the plant. That work starts this summer. And Davis and his team turn to the other 50 projects on their economic recruitment board.

(AL.com reporter William Thornton contributed to this report)