A terrified driver who was decapitated in a 120mph smash on the M40 desperately dialled 999 and repeatedly told police he could not stop his out-of-control car as it hurtled along the motorway.

During the harrowing eight-minute emergency call, the 32-year-old thundered along the motorway in the early hours of the morning as call-takers tried to help him, but it ended with the operator hearing him being instantly killed as the car slammed into the back of a stationary lorry.

The horrific ride was recorded by the police and was replayed to a coroner who heard how company director Kaushal Gandhi struggled at the controls of his white Skoda Octavia as it topped speeds of 116mph before the final impact.

The coroner heard that the car was finally brought to a devastating halt when it slewed off the motorway and into a lay-by where it hit a parked flat-bed lorry, near Denham.

Emergency services who arrived at the scene soon after the crash found Mr Gandhi's headless body in the wreckage.

The car was embedded under the lorry right up to the back wheels.

The inquest in Beaconsfield, heard that the motorist was desperately telling police that his car was driving itself as it reached 119mph two seconds before the collision with the stationary 18-tonne lorry.

However, senior coroner Cripsin Butler said that data analysis from the mangled car's airbag systems failed to provide evidence of the defects Mr Gandhi, from Harrow, was describing to the police call-taker moments before his death.

The desperate driver, who the inquest heard was a car enthusiast and a "meticulous" driver, even asked a call handler if a lane could be closed ahead of him as he approached a junction with the A40 at Denham.

"It is just gone 77mph right now," he said.

The call taker was then heard asking if he had tried pulling on the handbrake.

"I haven't tried it [using the handbrake] because at this speed I am not sure what will happen. I am in the middle lane right now, there is no traffic. Do you want me to try the hand brake?"

The coroner heard that the phone connection was lost moments after Mr Gandhi was heard saying: "I am just going to check that, one second... "

The call taker was then heard to say: "Are you still there? Hello, operator, I've lost the line."

The coroner was told that a retired firefighter who was driving an Ocado HGV on the opposite side of the road, told police of how the white Skoda crashed into the truck 600 yards after the M40 merged into the A40 Western Avenue shortly after 3am on February 2, 2016.

The eye-witness, Robert Hague, said: "Just a milli-second after it whooshed past me, I heard a bang."

Mr Hague called the emergency services immediately after he used the A40 junction's motorway to go back to the scene.

He told the inquest: "The car was almost completely embedded in the lorry, the roof of the car was peeled back. The car had knocked the rear axle of the lorry a long way forward into the front axle.

"I felt sure this would have taken the car driver's head off."

The inquest heard that the main car part that recorded the data was destroyed in the collision but it had fed the information to the vehicle's airbag system.

That data revealed the Skoda was travelling at 116mph with the accelerator pedal fully depressed five seconds before the crash.

Police collision investigator Andrew Evans explained that applying the handbrake could have saved Mr Gandhi's life by forcing the car's rear wheels to lock up and turn it around so it skidded backwards.

Having ruled out any suggestion of suicide, Mr Butler concluded the inquest saying: "The vehicle was badly damaged in the collision but subsequent extensive investigations have not revealed any evidence of the faults described by Mr Gandhi."