diff --git a/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js b/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js
index abc5decf62..4bacd0fe2c 100644
--- a/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js
+++ b/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+'use strict';
+
 var httpRequest = require("../src/cloud-code/httpRequest"),
     bodyParser = require('body-parser'),
     express = require("express");
@@ -158,31 +160,47 @@ describe("httpRequest", () => {
       done();
     })
   });
-  it("should encode a JSON body", (done) => {
+  
+  it("should encode a query string body by default", (done) => {
+    let options = {
+      body: {"foo": "bar"}, 
+    }
+    let result = httpRequest.encodeBody(options);
+    expect(result.body).toEqual('foo=bar');
+    expect(result.headers['Content-Type']).toEqual('application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
+    done();
     
-    var result = httpRequest.encodeBody({"foo": "bar"}, {'Content-Type': 'application/json'});
-    expect(result).toEqual('{"foo":"bar"}');
+  })
+  
+  it("should encode a JSON body", (done) => {
+    let options = {
+      body: {"foo": "bar"}, 
+      headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
+    }
+    let result = httpRequest.encodeBody(options);
+    expect(result.body).toEqual('{"foo":"bar"}');
     done();
     
   })
    it("should encode a www-form body", (done) => {
-    
-    var result = httpRequest.encodeBody({"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"}, {'cOntent-tYpe': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'});
-    expect(result).toEqual("foo=bar&bar=baz");
+    let options = {
+      body: {"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"},
+      headers: {'cOntent-tYpe': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}
+    }
+    let result = httpRequest.encodeBody(options);
+    expect(result.body).toEqual("foo=bar&bar=baz");
     done();
   });
   it("should not encode a wrong content type", (done) => {
-    
-    var result = httpRequest.encodeBody({"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"}, {'cOntent-tYpe': 'mime/jpeg'});
-    expect(result).toEqual({"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"});
+    let options = {
+      body:{"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"}, 
+      headers: {'cOntent-tYpe': 'mime/jpeg'}
+    }
+    let result = httpRequest.encodeBody(options);
+    expect(result.body).toEqual({"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"});
     done();
   });
-  it("should not encode when missing content type", (done) => {
-    var result = httpRequest.encodeBody({"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"}, {'X-Custom-Header': 'my-header'});
-    expect(result).toEqual({"foo": "bar", "bar": "baz"});
-    done();
-  });
-  
+
   it("should fail gracefully", (done) => {
     httpRequest({
       url: "http://not a good url",
@@ -196,6 +214,17 @@ describe("httpRequest", () => {
         done();
       }
     });
+  });
+  
+  it('should get a cat image', (done) => {
+    httpRequest({
+      url: 'http://thecatapi.com/api/images/get?format=src&type=jpg',
+      followRedirects: true
+    }).then((res) => {
+      expect(res.buffer).not.toBe(null);
+      expect(res.text).not.toBe(null);
+      done();
+    })
   })
 
   it("should params object to query string", (done) => {
diff --git a/src/cloud-code/HTTPResponse.js b/src/cloud-code/HTTPResponse.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f234f332db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/cloud-code/HTTPResponse.js
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+
+export default class HTTPResponse {
+  constructor(response) {
+    this.status = response.statusCode;
+    this.headers = response.headers;
+    this.buffer = response.body;
+    this.cookies = response.headers["set-cookie"];
+  }
+  
+  get text() {
+    return this.buffer.toString('utf-8');
+  }
+  get data() {
+    if (!this._data) {
+      try {
+        this._data = JSON.parse(this.text);
+      } catch (e) {}
+    }
+    return this._data;
+  }
+}
diff --git a/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js b/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js
index 35af79ca3e..d78e67350f 100644
--- a/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js
+++ b/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js
@@ -1,26 +1,36 @@
-var request = require("request"),
-  querystring = require('querystring'),
-  Parse = require('parse/node').Parse;
+import request from 'request';
+import Parse from 'parse/node';
+import HTTPResponse from './HTTPResponse';
+import querystring from 'querystring';
 
-var encodeBody = function(body, headers = {}) {
+var encodeBody = function({body, headers = {}}) {
   if (typeof body !== 'object') {
-    return body;
+    return {body, headers};
   }
   var contentTypeKeys = Object.keys(headers).filter((key) => {
     return key.match(/content-type/i) != null;
   });
 
-  if (contentTypeKeys.length == 1) {
+  if (contentTypeKeys.length == 0) {
+    // no content type
+    //  As per https://parse.com/docs/cloudcode/guide#cloud-code-advanced-sending-a-post-request the default encoding is supposedly x-www-form-urlencoded
+    
+    body = querystring.stringify(body);
+    headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded';
+  } else {
+    /* istanbul ignore next */
+    if (contentTypeKeys.length > 1) {
+      console.error('multiple content-type headers are set.');
+    }
+    // There maybe many, we'll just take the 1st one
     var contentType = contentTypeKeys[0];
     if (headers[contentType].match(/application\/json/i)) {
       body = JSON.stringify(body);
     } else if(headers[contentType].match(/application\/x-www-form-urlencoded/i)) {
-      body = Object.keys(body).map(function(key){
-        return `${key}=${encodeURIComponent(body[key])}`
-      }).join("&");
+      body = querystring.stringify(body);
     }
   }
-  return body;
+  return {body, headers};
 }
 
 module.exports = function(options) {
@@ -32,7 +42,7 @@ module.exports = function(options) {
   delete options.success;
   delete options.error;
   delete options.uri; // not supported
-  options.body = encodeBody(options.body, options.headers);
+  options = Object.assign(options,  encodeBody(options));
   // set follow redirects to false by default
   options.followRedirect = options.followRedirects == true;
   // support params options
@@ -41,6 +51,8 @@ module.exports = function(options) {
   } else if (typeof options.params === 'string') {
     options.qs = querystring.parse(options.params);
   }
+  // force the response as a buffer
+  options.encoding = null;
 
   request(options, (error, response, body) => {
     if (error) {
@@ -49,15 +61,8 @@ module.exports = function(options) {
       }
       return promise.reject(error);
     }
-    var httpResponse = {};
-    httpResponse.status = response.statusCode;
-    httpResponse.headers = response.headers;
-    httpResponse.buffer = new Buffer(response.body);
-    httpResponse.cookies = response.headers["set-cookie"];
-    httpResponse.text = response.body;
-    try {
-      httpResponse.data = JSON.parse(response.body);
-    } catch (e) {}
+    let httpResponse = new HTTPResponse(response);
+    
     // Consider <200 && >= 400 as errors 
     if (httpResponse.status < 200 || httpResponse.status >= 400) {
       if (callbacks.error) {