diff --git a/warcprox/main.py b/warcprox/main.py
index 1f270a1..f13d2dd 100644
--- a/warcprox/main.py
+++ b/warcprox/main.py
@@ -162,6 +162,10 @@ def _build_arg_parser(prog='warcprox'):
             default=None, help=(
                 'host:port of tor socks proxy, used only to connect to '
                 '.onion sites'))
+    # Configurable connection timeout to target sites, default is 60 sec.
+    arg_parser.add_argument(
+            '--remote-server-timeout', dest='remote_server_timeout', type=float,
+            default=None, help=argparse.SUPPRESS)
     arg_parser.add_argument(
             '--crawl-log-dir', dest='crawl_log_dir', default=None, help=(
                 'if specified, write crawl log files in the specified '
diff --git a/warcprox/mitmproxy.py b/warcprox/mitmproxy.py
index 7792c5c..b25901b 100644
--- a/warcprox/mitmproxy.py
+++ b/warcprox/mitmproxy.py
@@ -205,6 +205,7 @@ class MitmProxyHandler(http_server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
     and records the bytes in transit as it proxies them.
     '''
     logger = logging.getLogger("warcprox.mitmproxy.MitmProxyHandler")
+    _remote_server_timeout = 60
 
     def __init__(self, request, client_address, server):
         threading.current_thread().name = 'MitmProxyHandler(tid={},started={},client={}:{})'.format(warcprox.gettid(), datetime.datetime.utcnow().isoformat(), client_address[0], client_address[1])
@@ -248,7 +249,7 @@ class MitmProxyHandler(http_server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
             self._remote_server_sock.setsockopt(socket.IPPROTO_TCP, socket.TCP_NODELAY, 1)
 
         # XXX what value should this timeout have?
-        self._remote_server_sock.settimeout(60)
+        self._remote_server_sock.settimeout(self._remote_server_timeout)
         self._remote_server_sock.connect((self.hostname, int(self.port)))
 
         # Wrap socket if SSL is required
diff --git a/warcprox/warcproxy.py b/warcprox/warcproxy.py
index 7ae5ab4..6d8accb 100644
--- a/warcprox/warcproxy.py
+++ b/warcprox/warcproxy.py
@@ -397,6 +397,9 @@ class SingleThreadedWarcProxy(http_server.HTTPServer, object):
                 WarcProxyHandler.onion_tor_socks_proxy_host = options.onion_tor_socks_proxy
                 WarcProxyHandler.onion_tor_socks_proxy_port = None
 
+        if options.remote_server_timeout:
+            WarcProxyHandler._remote_server_timeout = options.remote_server_timeout
+
         http_server.HTTPServer.__init__(
                 self, server_address, WarcProxyHandler, bind_and_activate=True)