[Dottore]

Thanks all for the advice.

I now understand EBay—sort of.

I didn't buy the car in the end, for unrelated reasons. (something even more interesting on the horizon)

But I followed the auction closely, and made a few half-hearted bids.

Somehow though the whole thing was over very suddenly, even though my screen still said "4 minutes 50 seconds remaining". WTF? I guess another lesson is, make sure you have a timer for the last 5 minutes of the auction.