diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 94e1afdee7..6bfd0934b3 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -906,6 +906,35 @@ static CURLcode curlinfo_strbuf(CURL *curl, CURLINFO info, struct strbuf *buf)
 	return ret;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Extract a normalized version of the content type, with any
+ * spaces suppressed, all letters lowercased, and no trailing ";"
+ * or parameters.
+ *
+ * Note that we will silently remove even invalid whitespace. For
+ * example, "text / plain" is specifically forbidden by RFC 2616,
+ * but "text/plain" is the only reasonable output, and this keeps
+ * our code simple.
+ *
+ * Example:
+ *   "TEXT/PLAIN; charset=utf-8" -> "text/plain"
+ *   "text / plain" -> "text/plain"
+ */
+static void extract_content_type(struct strbuf *raw, struct strbuf *type)
+{
+	const char *p;
+
+	strbuf_reset(type);
+	strbuf_grow(type, raw->len);
+	for (p = raw->buf; *p; p++) {
+		if (isspace(*p))
+			continue;
+		if (*p == ';')
+			break;
+		strbuf_addch(type, tolower(*p));
+	}
+}
+
 /* http_request() targets */
 #define HTTP_REQUEST_STRBUF	0
 #define HTTP_REQUEST_FILE	1
@@ -957,9 +986,12 @@ static int http_request(const char *url,
 
 	ret = run_one_slot(slot, &results);
 
-	if (options && options->content_type)
-		curlinfo_strbuf(slot->curl, CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE,
-				options->content_type);
+	if (options && options->content_type) {
+		struct strbuf raw = STRBUF_INIT;
+		curlinfo_strbuf(slot->curl, CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE, &raw);
+		extract_content_type(&raw, options->content_type);
+		strbuf_release(&raw);
+	}
 
 	if (options && options->effective_url)
 		curlinfo_strbuf(slot->curl, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL,
diff --git a/remote-curl.c b/remote-curl.c
index 52c2d96ce6..a5ab977306 100644
--- a/remote-curl.c
+++ b/remote-curl.c
@@ -205,7 +205,7 @@ static int show_http_message(struct strbuf *type, struct strbuf *msg)
 	 * TODO should handle "; charset=XXX", and re-encode into
 	 * logoutputencoding
 	 */
-	if (strcasecmp(type->buf, "text/plain"))
+	if (strcmp(type->buf, "text/plain"))
 		return -1;
 
 	strbuf_trim(msg);
diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/error.sh b/t/lib-httpd/error.sh
index 786f2816bb..23cec97cc3 100755
--- a/t/lib-httpd/error.sh
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/error.sh
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 printf "Status: 500 Intentional Breakage\n"
 
 printf "Content-Type: "
+charset=iso-8859-1
 case "$PATH_INFO" in
 *html*)
 	printf "text/html"
@@ -10,8 +11,13 @@ case "$PATH_INFO" in
 *text*)
 	printf "text/plain"
 	;;
+*charset*)
+	printf "text/plain; charset=utf-8"
+	charset=utf-8
+	;;
 esac
 printf "\n"
 
 printf "\n"
-printf "this is the error message\n"
+printf "this is the error message\n" |
+iconv -f us-ascii -t $charset
diff --git a/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh b/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
index 13defd3886..b35b2610e3 100755
--- a/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
+++ b/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
@@ -181,5 +181,10 @@ test_expect_success 'git client does not show html errors' '
 	! grep "this is the error message" stderr
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'git client shows text/plain with a charset' '
+	test_must_fail git clone "$HTTPD_URL/error/charset" 2>stderr &&
+	grep "this is the error message" stderr
+'
+
 stop_httpd
 test_done