Hot Rod Magazine website off limits for EU people

Yeah this is likely because the amount of information they collect and lack of accountability for what they do with that information doesn't pass GDPR. Which given that places like Facebook and Google can pass GDPR has to give you some pause for thought.

I suspect though it is mainly that their dev team can't be bothered to make one of those "We're going to hoover up all your data and send it to anyone we damn well please, click this button to enjoy the shiny cars (and agree to the above)" type messages.

At first it was frustrating getting sites that wouldn't let your view content when GDPR came in, but now (having implemented GDPR compliance at my day job in a fair amount of detail) I'm quite thankful, because if they can't pass it, what the hell are they doing with my info!??!

Yes, it is strange. Specially when they take the trouble for their Motortrend branding to pass GDPR.

I don't think I'm going bother with VPN, but there was a lot of information on modifying cars I found very interesting and usefull on the hotrod site.

How do you mean "solve"? That we'll be able to have our data harvested and sold by US Corporations without even a by-your-leave?

Even if that is what you desire to happen, we already have a UK GDPR legislation in place which mirros the EU one. Also the point of GDPR is if we want people within the EU to be able to use our side we have to comply with it.

Furthermore, it isn't hard! Motortrends or one of their sponsors is clearly doing something nefarious with the data they are harvesting. Or (as I say) they are being very very lazy.

I suspect the reason Google and Facebook are ok with gdpr is that they are big enough that if they ever did get taken to court they would simply employ the likes of Johnny Cochran and successfully counter sue for the entire GDP of several EU countries.
They're too big to go after, the same rules don't apply to them.