2026 Apex Ultra-Lite 246BARV

The Apex Ultra-Lite 246BARV scales the bar-style concept up into a family coach. Like the smaller 242BARV it features a flip-up bar countertop that opens the galley to an outdoor entertaining space, but here it is wrapped around a dual-entry, two-slide layout with bunk beds, a front bedroom and a rear corner full bath. Two entry doors make the in-and-out flow easy for a family, and a bar countertop with chairs turns the campsite into a gathering space. Nominal capacity is six.

At 6,532 pounds unloaded and 32 feet 3 inches, the 246BARV is a half-ton-plus tow with about 1,318 pounds of cargo capacity — a tighter payload that reflects the second slide and the family layout, so watch total load. Standard equipment is full 12-volt residential: a 10-cubic-foot 12V refrigerator, a 3-burner stovetop with an air-fryer oven, a 15,000-BTU ducted air conditioner, a 55-amp power center with standard 50-amp service and a 400-watt solar system with inverter prep. The current factory record lists the awning size as not yet defined, so that figure is flagged.

Construction is the Apex Aluma-Cage recipe — vacuum-bonded laminated dual Azdel fiberglass sidewalls and rear wall, a laminated aluminum trussed roof with a Dicor Crossflex membrane and a laminated aluminum-framed floor — a clear tier above the metal-sided Catalina value line. For a family that entertains and wants bunks, dual entry and an outdoor bar in a still-towable ultra-light, the 246BARV is the social family plan in the line.

Coachmen's Apex Ultra-Lite is the brand's premium-mainstream ultra-light travel trailer — a laminated-fiberglass, aluminum-framed line built to tow behind a mid-size SUV or any half-ton. The 246BARV on this page is highlighted; the other profiled plans link to their own pages. Profiled here are breadth-spanning floorplans — couples rear-bath, bar-style entertainer, family bunkhouse and rear-living lounge — with the rest of the roster catalogued on the line hub and profiled in demand order. (Apex also fields a value-priced metal-framed Apex Ultra-Lite X sub-line and the smaller Apex Nano, summarized on the hub.)

Fresh water is the single biggest line in this floorplan’s load plan. A full 50-gallon tank is about 32% of the 1,318-pound cargo capacity — enough that whether you tow with water aboard is a real decision on the 246BARV rather than a detail.

The published dry tongue weight of 850 pounds is 13% of the 6,532-pound dry weight, which sits inside the 10–15% band usually quoted for stable towing. It is still a dry figure: loading the front pass-through and the fresh tank both push it up.

Nothing above changes the ceiling. Loaded to its 7,850-pound GVWR the 246BARV is towing 1,318 pounds more than its 6,532-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 50 gallons of fresh against 70 grey and 35 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Ranked by GVWR, the 246BARV sits 3 of 5 in the Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite line: 7,850 pounds against a line that runs from 7,600 to 9,618 pounds. That position is the useful thing to know, because the plans immediately either side of it are the real alternatives.

Either side of it in the same line: Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite 244RBS is 196 pounds lighter at 7,654 lb GVWR; and Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite 291TBSS is 130 pounds heavier at 7,980 lb GVWR.

Against the 246BARV: the Imagine 2500RL is 2 ft shorter; the Jay Flight 265RLSW is 1 ft shorter; the Forest River No Boundaries NB20.9 is 3 lb heavier and sleeps 2 more. Those are differences in the published numbers only — what they cost, how they are built and how they live are separate questions each of those pages answers on its own terms.

Those are the nearest travel trailers from other lines by weight — one per line, picked by proximity on that figure and nothing else. They are listed so the same tow vehicle can be checked against real alternatives, not because they are equivalent inside; layout, build and price diverge sharply across that group.

For scale, the Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite floorplans profiled here run 5,772 to 7,304 pounds dry and 29 to 34 feet of exterior length across 5 plans. Where a floorplan falls in that spread usually says more about which vehicle can tow it, and which site it fits, than the layout name does.

Every profiled floorplan in this line, with the full weight table, is on the Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite line hub.

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 16 of them for the 246BARV. The rest are not shown, because the alternative is reading a figure across from a sibling floorplan or from what the segment usually does — and a number nobody published is worth less than an admitted gap.

Not published for this floorplan: interior height, tire specification. If you find one of these in a manufacturer document for this plan, it belongs on this page.

The completeness figure at the foot of this page (93%) measures the same thing on the full field set: it is a measurement of how much this floorplan’s manufacturer publishes, not of how much research went into the page.

Values on this page carrying an asterisk were derived by arithmetic from published figures, or come from a single source, rather than being printed directly by the manufacturer. The flag travels with the number into the downloadable spec sheet.

How every figure here was sourced and checked is set out on the methodology page.