Volkswagen Blues was nominated for the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction at the 1984 Governor General's Awards and was one of the selected novels in the 2005 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by author and former National Librarian of Canada, Roch Carrier.
Volkswagen Blues was individually cited when Jacques Poulin was awarded the Prix Gilles-Corbeil (informally known as the "Nobel québécois").