From a nondescript building in a quiet industrial park in suburban Detroit, General Motors has shipped nearly 40,000 hand-built engines for some of the automaker’s fastest cars.

That ends in January when GM closes its Performance Build Center in Wixom, Mich., after nearly a decade in business. The closure also will temporarily end a popular build-your-own program in which customers pay $5,000 to spend a day at the center assembling an engine for their Chevrolet Corvette, Camaro or custom car.

GM Powertrain spokesman Tom Read said the company plans to set up a similar program in the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky. He declined to say when the program will begin.

Some engines made at the Performance Build Center, such as the supercharged double overhead cam Northstar V-8 used in the Cadillac XLR, no longer are being produced. Others, such as the 6.2-liter V-8 option in the 2014 Corvette Stingray, are made in other plants.

GM opened the Performance Build Center in late 2004 to elevate the company’s image of craftsmanship. The company chose 30 employees from local powertrain plants to work at the center.

A worker starts with a machine-built block and adds by hand the pistons, valves and other parts to complete the engine. Some engines had a plaque with the builder’s name.

In a standard engine plant, machines add most of the parts to a block. A hand-built engine is not superior but it lends an air of exclusivity and craftsmanship.

Ford Motor Co. operates a special production line at its Romeo engine plant, northeast of Detroit, where technicians hand-build the supercharged 5.8-liter V-8 engine for the Mustang Shelby GT500. And Chrysler has a special crew at its Viper plant in Detroit that hand-builds the car’s 640-hp, 8.4-liter V-10.

Production at GM’s Performance Build Center is winding down this fall with the last V-8s for a special race-ready version of the Camaro. GM is moving production of crate engines — sold to customers for use in custom autos — to other plants.

GM spokesman Bob Wheeler said employees will be offered jobs at other GM Powertrain operations.

He said the build-your-own experience will be enhanced when the program begins in Bowling Green.

“There was a fairly steady flow of customers. I can’t say people were waiting in line, but it was steady,” he said of customers who paid to work alongside a technician to build their engines.

He added: “It will be pretty cool to go to the plant where the engine is made and watch it go into the Corvette.”

Photo above: Rick Hendrick owner of the Hendrick Motorsports team and Hendrick Automotive Group, builds the engine that will go into his new Chevrolet Corvette in 2011 with guidance from Rich McBride, an experimental assembler at General Motors’ Performance Build Center in Wixom, Mich.