We've now received our May issue of Motor Trend in the mail and can verify that the 2008 Subaru Impreza does appear on the cover and inside the mag. We can't show you those pictures of the car since they were taken by one of Motor Trend's photographers and are owned by the magazine (though you can view them here). The cover car is a blue model in the new four-door hatchback body style. Yesterday we reported about new pics surfacing over at Inside Line featuring a version of the car in red. While the IL article did provide us with some solid details about the car, the pics that were shown on the site and labeled "Original photo source unknown" have been exposed as photoshopped versions of the images taken by Motor Trend. Go ahead and grab your issue and compare. It's clear that the magazine was scanned, the car selected out, given a new color and pasted on a new background. Looking closely at the IL pics, we're a bit disappointed in ourselves that we didn't catch it sooner.

We're actually pleased at this little turn of events, because it means that there does not yet exist official pics of the 2008 Subaru Impreza in the wild. We've harshed on the styling of the new Impreza a lot here, but are still willing to give it a chance. Perhaps the forgiving eye of Subaru's own in-house photographer can convince us it's not that bad. We'll find out when we arrive in New York next week and pick up our press kit, as well as take our own shots of the new car in person.

Thanks for the tip, Chris!