The cluster of six collector-car auctions that get underway in the Phoenix area this week — and a 3,000-car sale by Mecum Auctions a week later in Florida — come five years after a major market correction, possibly providing clarity and insight on the state of the recovery.

After the boom times of the early 2000s, the vintage car market hit the wall in late 2008, with American muscle cars taking a particularly hard fall. Today, with the Dow over 16,000 and interest rates relatively low, the top reaches of the market seem in good form, and Detroit muscle has staged a quiet, if somewhat uneven, comeback.

The results from this year’s Scottsdale auctions are likely to provide a better barometer of values than the sales held on the Monterey Peninsula of California last August, collector-car experts say, because the Arizona auctions cover a broader cross-section of the market. Monterey — where 75 cars sold for $1 million or more and one Ferrari brought $27.5 million — skews decidedly to the high end. By comparison, about half as many cars have the potential to break the million-dollar mark in Scottsdale, though treasures like a 1931 Alfa-Romeo 6C 1750 Gran Sport Spider and a 1952 Cunningham C-3 promise to elevate the sales totals.

Colin Comer, a Milwaukee-based collector and the author of “Million Dollar Muscle Cars,” said in a telephone interview that while he didn’t see a cooling in the market now, there was little prospect that prices would be soft.