diff --git a/lisp/ChangeLog b/lisp/ChangeLog
index 35da6fc9e31..3fd5cbfcf26 100644
--- a/lisp/ChangeLog
+++ b/lisp/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2012-03-16  Aaron S. Hawley  <Aaron.S.Hawley@gmail.com>
+
+	* tar-mode.el (tar-mode): Fix saving by conditionally undoing
+        `special-mode' setting of `buffer-read-only'.  (Bug#11010)
+
 2012-03-16  Glenn Morris  <rgm@gnu.org>
 
 	* view.el (view-buffer, view-buffer-other-window)
diff --git a/lisp/tar-mode.el b/lisp/tar-mode.el
index 949ac4c0889..3eb2be15698 100644
--- a/lisp/tar-mode.el
+++ b/lisp/tar-mode.el
@@ -634,6 +634,9 @@ inside of a tar archive without extracting it and re-archiving it.
 
 See also: variables `tar-update-datestamp' and `tar-anal-blocksize'.
 \\{tar-mode-map}"
+  (and buffer-file-name
+       (file-writable-p buffer-file-name)
+       (setq buffer-read-only nil))    ; undo what `special-mode' did
   (make-local-variable 'tar-parse-info)
   (set (make-local-variable 'require-final-newline) nil) ; binary data, dude...
   (set (make-local-variable 'local-enable-local-variables) nil)